5 Reasons I love Weightlifting & Why You Should Too!

This time 2 years ago the thought of walking into the weights room.. well it didn’t exist tbh. If you mentioned the word diet or exercise I would grimace. Exercise? Isn’t that the torture I endured during P.E at school? Hadn’t I left that behind long ago?

When I first started my ‘weightloss’ journey I never thought in a million years I would feel how I feel now about fitness. I wanted to lose weight, look better, be fitter but I always thought I would fail.

At my starting weight, I was 261lbs (thats nearly 19stone/121kg!). I could never fathom losing 5lbs let alone 85lbs! In my head my ultimate goal was 160lbs, but never thought it was realistic or would happen. I thought that to achieve my goals I had to do hours of cardio and eat under 1000kcals. I hated it so much and it was just setting myself up to fail all the time so when I caved or got sick of the routine, I would undo all the work and just binge, telling myself I was just destined to be this size forever.

It wasn’t until I experienced some heartbreak that I completely changed. My way of coping with the sadness was going to the gym late at night and just do cardio, as I always had. It was not till then that I started looking at what others were doing that I wanted to try lifting.

I would be on the treadmill at 11pm at night, bored out of my mind and sweating as it was such hard work being as unfit as I was, that I eyed up the resistance machines and wanted to give them a go. In my head at first it seemed like a lot less effort and being the fat lazy gal that I was, seemed easier.

I started dabbling on the resistance machines, and googling everything I didn’t know. Soon I was trying out free weights and going into the weights room, trying to hide away and do the exercises the best I could. Fast forward to now I will walk into the weights room in my gym, confident with my workouts and myself.

So thats the brief summary of my story, now let me tell you all the reasons why I love lifting!

You become stronger – Every time I lift weights I get stronger and improve from my last session. I constantly see myself beating personal bests and lifting more and more every time.

I get out of my head – Each session requires all my focus and attention and it gives me a chance to get out of my head and leave the stresses of work and life behind. I have one focus, and that is me. I have to give my all each session and it gives me a mental break.

My confidence has rocketed – Before I was an overweight girl in her twenties with no self confidence, suffered from severe anxiety and depression and hated herself. Now my life has done a complete 360 and I have the confidence to go for what I want, even just being able to walk into the weights room full of men is an achievement for the old me.

It transformed my body – I often get asked if I did cardio to achieve my weight loss and I can say it has been 90% weight lifting. Falling in love with weights was the best thing to happen to me, and it completely changed my body. I honestly believe if I hadn’t weight trained that I would have a lot more loose skin and my body would look completely different.

Its fucking badass – Not only do you feel like a QUEEN when you leave the gym because you just bossed your workout but you get freaking strong, and theres nothing better than a strong woman. It may not be everyones cup of tea but give it a go, you won’t regret it.

So if all the above isn’t enough to get you lifting the iron, what about the fact that weight lifting burns more calories, improves your bones, boosts metabolism, improves your mood, changes your body, improves your quality of sleep and your heart health!

What do you think? Why do you love lifting? Let me know in the comments!

Lots of love, S x

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